When it comes to exploring Phoenix’s rich cultural history, we’ll admit that we’re visual learners. Which is why we’ve found yet another reason to attend the 26th Annual Art Detour’s Art D’Core Gala on Saturday, March 1. The creative kickoff party will be hosted by Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton, Downtown…
This Sunday artist James B. Hunt wants to give you the bird — 23 of them, to be precise. Hunt, who also goes by NXOEED, plans to perch his bird paintings all around Tempe for anyone to seek and find. And once you find a painting, it’s yours to keep…
Several nice plays opened here last weekend. What’s more, there was a lot of chatter among theater types about the bazillion or so dollars donated to one of our local playhouses. But if culturally minded people remember anything about Valentine’s weekend, 2014, it will be this: That was the weekend…
Courting Disaster is Jackalope Ranch’s weekly column of dating horror stories, observations, how-tos, and more by Katie Johnson. Names of ex-boyfriends, past hookups, and bad blind dates have been changed to protect the guilty. Love means never having to say, “Holy shit, you’re weird.” But secretly thinking it. There comes…
Bigger is just-plain better — when it comes to creative ideas, that is. That’s why every year since 2010 we’ve searched high and low for emerging creatives doing exceptional things in metro Phoenix. They’re on the cusp of something major, these painters, chefs, designers, dancers, innovators, and visionaries. That’s what…
They’re at it again. The Phoenix-based non-profit for startup businesses, Seed Spot, has selected its third batch of ventures to undergo its coveted four-month incubation program and, tonight, it’s introducing the chosen applicants to the rest of the Phoenix community…
Claude Lanzmann built Shoah, his nine-hour 1985 Holocaust documentary, from over 350 hours of footage — interviews, staged scenes, silent European landscapes as seen from a passing train, their secrets reborn in tender shades of green. One interview, with the only surviving former chairman of a Czech ghetto’s Nazi-appointed Jewish…
Several nice plays opened here last weekend. What’s more, there was a lot of chatter among theater types about the bazillion or so dollars donated to one of our local playhouses. But if culturally minded people remember anything about Valentine’s weekend, 2014, it will be this: That was the weekend…
I visited the new Mormon temple in Gilbert. The big, beautiful art glass windows were worth the trip. The wall-to-wall interior limestone was stunning; the crystal chandeliers were magnificent. The building’s castle-like, three-story neoclassic façade, layered with concrete and white quartz and topped by a 195-foot spire, is straight off…
It doesn’t feature iPhones, Twitter, or an Internet, and yet Paul Verhoeven’s RoboCop remains perhaps the most prescient sci-fi effort of the past 30 years — a work from 1987 whose continuing relevance is matched by the fact that no one would dare make it today. Or, at least, remake…
No matter what else he does, director Sam Raimi has two unassailable fan favorites under his belt: 1987’s Evil Dead 2 and the 1992 trilogy-capper Army of Darkness. (His first film, 1981’s The Evil Dead, is more “respected” than “loved” by the fans.) Released between those two films, Raimi’s 1990…
Here’s the last thing I ever would have expected out of Pompeii, that sword-thrust of 3D gladiator-vs.-volcano madness coming right at your disbelieving eyeholes. An hour or so in, when Vesuvius exhausts its portentous rumblings and blows its top (3D!), I legitimately wasn’t ready. Yes, all that third-act destruction is…
In 1990, the same year that Kevin Costner released the massive global hit Dances with Wolves, a curious thing happened in France. The name Kevin became the country’s most popular for new babies, a Gaelic moniker edging out national stalwarts like Antoine and Jules. Imagine if everyone in America suddenly…
If, in a guessing game, you were to wager that Phoenix’s longest running film festival was the, ahem, Phoenix Film Festival, you’d be dead wrong. The Greater Phoenix Jewish Film Festival would be the correct answer – and it’s got the ID to prove it.In its 18th year, the festival…
Action heroes with nothing to lose are the best kind, perhaps the only kind worth watching. In the opening seconds of Jaume Collet-Serra’s Non-Stop, Liam Neeson’s federal air marshal Bill Marks slumps in his parked vehicle, sloshing a few glugs of whiskey into a paper cup and stirring it up…
First, let’s get this out of the way: There is no Santa Claus. Now, on to a perhaps even harsher truth: There are certain indications that Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer, whose 17th-century paintings — like Girl with a Pearl Earring and The Music Lesson — show an extraordinarily delicate touch…
You know what pairs well with wine? Everything.But to discover what truly pairs perfectly with a bottle of red or a bottle of white, skip the trip to wine country and head to a favorite modern boutique with a vintage twist.Frances, in conjunction with local juggernaut Postino WineCafé, hosts After…
Second City alum and improviser extraordinaire Mike Lukas is gearing up for a nonstop weekend of laughs as the Outliars Comedy Club presents its first ever Stand-Up Comedy Festival. Lukas kicks off the event at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, February 20, inside The Speakeasy Comedy Lounge, 5101 North Scottsdale Road in…
When a new Whole Foods opened its doors on Camelback Road and 20th Street in September 2013, the Valley buzzed about it for weeks. Facebook posts and newspaper ink were dedicated to the occasion — despite the fact that there were already a few locations in the Valley.The excitement was…
Led by ASU associate professor of art, Anthony Pessler, “A Conversation About Art and Fear,” not to be confused with fear of art, tackles the topic of the modern artist by looking at the emotional and artistic process of creating one’s work. Pessler, a painter and drawer, is a proponent…
As cool as some athletes from the Suns, D-Backs, and Cardinals are, it’d be a rare occasion that we’d see them engage in some cross-discipline collaboration. The Arizona Opera, Ballet Arizona, and the Phoenix Symphony, on the other hand, are coming together on one stage for one night for the…
Crack a smile, because ASU’s Ceramics Studio Tour returns to the Valley for a 13th year. The tour, which is organized by the Artists Advisory Committee of the ASU Art Museum’s Ceramics Research Center, will showcase the work of more than 50 Phoenix area ceramics artists. Stops along the self-guided…
